Title: Evening with a Friend
Author: florahart
Pairing: Rosmerta/Ollivander
Kinks: Alternate pairing, and something resembling sex/power games.
Warnings: Uh. Well, see pairing? Also, lack of dialogue and weird POV. And sex toys and meeting for sex as a game. Or something.
Words: 2750
Rating: NC17
A/N: So, I was going to do the kleptophilia thing, and in fact, that was where this started, but then everyone else was being kleptomaniacs, and I don't even know. So, alternate pairing! *listens to crickets* I have made some canon assumptions that may be disprovable; please consider this AU in that case? I have assumed that Rosmerta went back to pub management after the whole amulet thing in HBP (and that she has a last name), and that Ollivander initially fled of his own accord, and was later captured in DH.

---

Evening with a Friend

There are many things people don't know about Rosmerta MacDougal Bickford.

It's not because she keeps secrets, although she does--no one confides in a barmaid that doesn't treat those confessions with all the seriousness they often deserve, and one can't give advice to those in trouble without having heard all the troubles of the others before them. But Rosmerta has depths not many suspect, and hears things people don't realize she hears; she is untrained in the art of hearing people's thoughts, but she hears some of them anyway. She keeps those secrets, too.

She tests people often; a dropped word here, a tease there. Most of them see her breasts, pushed up high into the square neckline of the uniform she puts herself in at the pub, and make unwarranted assumptions. A few play along with her, setting down a crossword puzzle, the complicated kind with double meanings and anagrams and inviting her to help them out, or asking her to listen as they think through the logic of a plan. An even smaller number understand how much she likes to play serious games.

Those few are her friends. She sees little enough of them, but the life she's made for herself satisfies her, and she likes the evenings when there are no games to be had, only tragedies large and small: romantic happenings gone badly wrong, or families tearing themselves apart with drink or deception. She likes to help well enough, likes being a barmaid, and she's good at it. But on the rare evening off, that's when she seeks a friend for a real game.

Since the incident with the amulet--and damn, does it eat at her that she let herself be sucked in by the big frightened eyes of Lucius Malfoy's son with his very real problems but his very false stories and the obvious knowledge she'd be a willing ear--her friends are fewer even than they once were. She's past forty, and knows that will change, with time; it did the last time there was a scandal. Still, it means she values these evenings all the more for their infrequency. With war looming--it has to be soon, doesn't it--they will become scarcer still.

Her lips curve in a small smile as she rolls the parchment and ties it, pink ribbon this time. She sets it on the sill for Aldebaran to take when he's finished having his way with a plump field-mouse, then goes back to polishing the bar. She'll stay until Cassiopeia arrives for the smallish Tuesday afternoon crowd, and then get dressed. She takes her chances when they come.

---

Ollivander feels the stirring of lust--so unusual for him, any more; he is old and his blood flows, he thinks, at its own whims. He can barely hear his heartbeat any more, most of the time, although now it pounds at any surprise; he knows there may be a reason to flee again at any moment. Still, Aldebaran is familiar to him, and the pink ribbon is clear.

He takes the cylinder gently and holds out his hand with a bit of sausage, then waits for the owl to take its leave before slowly unfurling the page.

Rosmerta's script is precise and neat, a calligraphic hand so few learn, any more. He misses the old days, when penmanship mattered and tidy habits of one's person were in fashion. He admires the shape of the words for a moment despite that they are blurred until he pulls his spectacles off the top of his head.

The note is short. It always is. Working out its meaning is part of the game.

---

Rosmerta waits in the room she's selected, quill in one hand, notebook in the other, and doesn't fidget. With experience comes patience, and she is very patient. Ollivander hasn't ever failed to understand a summons or its directions, and she has every confidence tonight won't be any different, even if they won't have nearly enough time to do the thing properly.

The clock chimes seven-thirty, and she finishes the draft of her text for this month's article in Witch Weekly--she writes under a pseudonym because else, no one would read--then glances it over quickly. It needs work, but not now. She straightens her spine and tucks it away, adjusting the neckline of her dress. He'll be here any minute.

---

Fabian Prewett

Ollivander purses his lips, tracing back over the years in his mind, considering his own words in their original description for that one. Cherry, seven and three-quarters. Unusual mermaid-scale core. Whippy.

This is another of Rosmerta's odd cluster of talents: an unusually specific branch of Legilimency. Perhaps there are other manifestations--he suspects there are, and that she uses them differently, with different men--but this is the one he knows: she hears, and remembers, what witches and wizards have been told about their wands.

He passes the old smithy, its stonework crumbling, and then the mill and the cabinet-maker's as he considers whether there's anything he might have failed to consider. The Channel glimmers beyond the inn as the autumn sun sets.

It could yet be a trap; last year she was a part of one, wasn't she? But he hasn't left anything out, and he's already decided it's worth what he judges to be a small risk, or he wouldn’t be here.

As he reaches the village outskirts, a clock in the town hall strikes once, a quarter to the hour. He hastens his steps. He doesn't like to be late, and he's still half a minute away.

But then, he is old; he moves more slowly than he once did. She won't mind. She is patient.

---

She breaks into a broad smile as the door handle turns. He's just missed the quarter-hour, but he's getting on in years; a few minutes here and there is nothing over which to work herself into a froth.

He steps across the threshold, wordless, closing the door firmly and holding out a bundle before him.

She takes it and sets it aside, then mutely removes his cloak and hangs it on the hook.

He shudders.

There is no reason in evidence but that she is touching him--barely, her fingers brushing the rough fabric of a workman's shirt as they move past. She likes how beautifully he reacts to her.

She walks around him slowly and stops before him, unfastening just the first old-fashioned button of his shirt before turning to pick up the bundle.

---

He's considered, he is sure, what she's got planned; however, until she shows him her approval, he always fears she has thought of a twist his mind hasn't reached. He has a prodigious memory and a love of detail, but this isn't the same as the sort of devious and flexible cleverness he admires in her. In her and others, to be fair, but most of the others don't indulge in the sort of games Rosmerta does.

It's just as well; it would likely wear him to a thread, were someone like the Lovegood girl--too young, of course, but later--to find him of interest as well. At his age, one woman is more than he can handle without help.

He smells Rosmerta's perfume as she flips one button undone, his nostrils twitching, his blood pounding in his ears as she turns away.

---

The bundle's contents are the most important thing. Seven and three-quarters is easy, and there are a limited number of likely locations where mermaids shed scales, though this is the one most out of the way, as well as the only one with a literal beanstalk growing outside the window.

Obviously, there's a whip. It's soft, light, more the shape of a whip than anything effective; he doesn't like pain so much as the idea of pain, the idea of being at her mercy, and she isn't interested in brutality, just the game itself. But cherry--what has he done for cherry?

She hopes for one of two alternatives, and is pleased to find one thing she thought of, and one she hadn't. His mind is creative.

She wonders where he got them, or if he made them himself, but they're delightful, clacking gently against each other as she checks for unfortunate sharp edges or corners and tugs and the connecting stem/strings..

Finally, she turns back to him, smiling brightly. This is going to be fun.

---

The sense of relief, as ever, makes him sigh. He isn't sure why he lacks conviction, when it comes to Rosmerta's games, but every time, he's surprised all over again.

The flesh around his nipples tightens as she undoes his buttons, one by one, pushing the shirt and braces off his stooped shoulders.

He licks his lips.

Her fingers are cool where they come in contact with his chest, and her movements are sure: a button, and a pause, assessing where he stands.

She says nothing.

She rarely does.

At last his upper body is bare, and she's kneeling before him. His cock lifts, not so firm and proud as it once was, but still eager and willing; despite that he knows she's unlikely to wrap her red lips around the head, the image in his mind's eye suggests it is possible, and the flesh firms more quickly.

She unhooks his waistband and pushes down his trousers, leaving them around his thighs as she pushes him to sit on the wingback chair she's summoned from where it was before the fireplace.

They haven't moved more than a few feet from the door.

There's a draft here; he doesn't care.

---

His arousal is no longer that of a younger man, but Rosmerta knows how to handle it, and she sits him down on the chair. It's an ugly chair, dirty-yellow with raised paisleys the same color as their background, but its appearance doesn't matter. She watches his fingers curl around the arms, gripping the front end and digging his fingernails into the worn upholstery.

She tugs his trousers the rest of the way off, over his shoes.

She leaves his shoes on, their pointed tips scuffed before the wrinkled loose knit of his dark socks.

The band will be first.

Her palm cups his balls. The skin over them is loose, thin, dry, dusted with silvery hairs that tug slightly as she passes her thumb over them.

He hisses, and she does it again.

The inside of the band is soft, pliable against her fingers as she works on him, lifting his sac again and sliding it behind. She stretches it a bit and folds one end over the top, then joins it with the other, securing the elastic around him. His cock swells a little more, and it will certainly be enough for their purposes.

She slides both hands under his thighs, also dry, also thin-skinned, and pulls him toward her. He follows, and a moment later she draws his feet up and onto her shoulders.

His grip tightens again on the arms of the chair.

---

He isn't sure how she knows the fact she leaves his shoes on, Achilles tendons resting on her shoulders, leather framing her face, is so appealing to him. He's never mentioned it, and she can't read him, regardless of the way she hears the thoughts of so many others.

He slides down into place willingly. They've never done this before--not exactly this--but he's eager and more than willing. His plumped cock lies flat on his pale stomach, held firm by the ring she's placed around it.

He's glad he brought it. One cherry-wood item would have met her requirement, he supposes, confident again now that they've begun; he does like to be thorough, though, and the matter of carving and affixing the smooth-polished ridges of wood was simple. He had all afternoon to prepare.

The lubrication charm is as silent and wordless as the rest of their conversation, but he isn't surprised. His thighs quiver as she pulls the strand of beads through one palm with the forefinger and thumb of her other hand. They're polished smooth in the plump-dimpled shape of cherries as well, and charmed not to splinter; he likes putting her in control, but not to the extent that he wants slivers of wood working their way into his intestines.

He's proud of his work, and this sort of carving is no less a craft than any wand. And no less a pleasure, though it's true that the uses are perhaps more limited.

By the time she presses the first bead into him he feels like a boy, giddy and eager. The second one makes him laugh.

---

They slide into him, one at a time with another pause between them. She doesn't want to spend too many minutes on this, so she speeds her movements slightly.

The village clock strikes eight, the chimes muffled by the heavy door, as she stands back and picks up the whip.

He doesn't require any direction to stand, though he glances around for a moment, uncertain where she wants him. She licks her lips and waits, allowing him to choose.

The back of the chair is probably sturdy enough; when he turns around and places his hands wide on the corners, she smiles.

The supple tail of the whip swishes through the air, but there is no sharp crack. It likely stings, certainly, but it's more a snap than a crack, more about being in the position than experiencing any sliced-open contusions. She chuckles. He shudders.

She brings it down again, and he clenches his arsecheeks, rocking gently.

---

Despite the relative gentleness, Ollivander imagines she could be marking him, bruising. He arches his back and curves it up again.

She knows exactly how to vary where she strikes to maximize the surprise: the back of his thighs, and then again, and then all at once up at his shoulders; the small of his back and the curve of his arse. In no time he's gasping, rocking, squeezing.

When he's all but exhausted, shaking from the sensation, she stops, and with the lightest touch, she turns him around. He sits awkwardly, cock huge and swollen now, arse sore from gripping his beads, and watches her smile.

She's slippery-wet when she straddles him, as aroused by all of this as he is, and after a quick check of his face, assurance she isn't truly hurting him, she leans back, her hands on his knees, his shaking, quivering knees, and rocks. He skirt moves with her. Her bodice expands and contracts with her breath, but she doesn't undress. She never does.

He pushes, pushes hard, wants to come, but doesn't know that he can.

---

Her back arches as she rides him, her hands catching the arms of the chair, his knees, one of each, and clinging. The position is awkward, but she likes watching him strain and pant to the very end. He's sweating now, flushes, working too hard for a man his age, smiling about it.

She's smiling, too. As soon as she feels her body pressing toward release, she shifts her weight and reaches deftly between her legs, unfastening the strap. An instant later she waves her wand to tug, slow and steady, on his beads.

She watches him come, then waves her wand again to clean them both up as she lifts off him. She helps him dress, gathers the materials from his bundle as keepsakes to add to her store, and goes.

---

The door of the smithy is closed now, where it was open before, and Ollivander stops to peer at the fluttering paper tacked to it.

She always leaves a puzzle for him, after--not a wand history, just a puzzle. Something she wants him to know.

This one is a rebus.

When he puzzles out the tiny pictures and sounds them together, he frowns. The meaning is unclear, and he's never known her to encode a code before.

He goes inside, sits down at the uneven table next to the cold forge to consider.

He's still absorbed when the door bursts in and four men surround and capture him, which is, of course, when the warning becomes clear, a moment too late.

Ah, well. He's had a good run, and if this is the end, it's been a good evening, passed with an old friend.